


some hearts are ghosts settling down in dark waters

by quibbler



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 08:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3441254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quibbler/pseuds/quibbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost all houses have a television, issued by Peacekeepers. These machines never work unless there is a mandatory viewing of a Capitol broadcast. When they announce that the Quarter Quell will send Victors to hell once more.</p><p>More than one television screen is broken that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some hearts are ghosts settling down in dark waters

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Alela Diane's White as Diamonds. I own nothing--Marvel owns the characters and some of the plot devices, and Suzanne Collins owns the Hunger Games universe!
> 
> Thanks are due for Emma (filzsimmons) for beta-ing this and dealing with my constant excitement for writing this universe. <3

All Victors of the Hunger Games become objects to the Capitol. They are put on display and monitored regularly, but the public sees them as heroes and role models. What the citizens of the Capitol don't realise is just how much the Games take a toll on a person. Victors can be hollow, can lose their minds. (Rumour has it that some have been reprogrammed so they don't lash out.)

The one thing that the Capitol has never been able to take away from them is the immunity to being thrown to the dogs once again. Until now.

Almost all houses have a television, issued by Peacekeepers. These machines never work unless there is a mandatory viewing of a Capitol broadcast. When they announce that the Quarter Quell will send Victors to hell once more.

More than one television screen is broken that night.

\-----

DISTRICT ONE

She has been grasping the glass of the table in front of the couch so hard that her knuckles are white. It isn't that she minds, really--she has been trained to be a killer, after all--but she would hate to give up her lifestyle. She is surrounded by the very frivolous things she once spent her afternoons making, when she wasn't at school or training, and she prefers it this way.

The other Victors from her district are no competition. She smiles, feline and predatory and ready to kill before she is even first to leap for the opportunity.

She is ready to win again.

["Your female tribute from District One is Dottie Underwood!"]

\-----

DISTRICT TWO

He stares at the television screen. It should be a nightmare and he'll wake up any moment, except he doesn't, not even when he punches a hole through the screen. The blood drips down his hands as he starts to shake.

_She screams obscenities as the screen fades to the Capitol's symbol. She is a skilled liar and an even more skilled killer, but she thought she could put that behind her now. She shouts until her throat burns._

He knows how to hurt, how to destroy. It's what the Capitol prizes him for. It's what he teaches kids who look up to him.

_It's just like the Capitol to send their most beloved actress back into the Arena._

["Your tributes from District Two are Jack Thompson and Angie Martinelli!"]

\-----

DISTRICT THREE

He is drunk when the announcement is made.

He is drunker still after.

The Capitol will riot--he has loved too many of them for this to go unnoticed. He has produced too many items of note for the nation to be cast off.

["The male tribute from District Three: Howard Stark!"]

\-----

DISTRICT FOUR

He doesn't remember anything from his Games, but they tell him that is probably a blessing. What they don't know is that he does just as much killing now as he must have done then, only now he is the Capitol's willing pawn, beaten to submission by wiping his brain clean.

He runs the cloth over his arm until it gleams.

["District Four's male tribute is Bucky Barnes!"]

\-----

DISTRICT SIX

They cling to each other in the darkness of their shared house. Something is about to shatter and it will likely be the both of them.

["District Six, I give you your tributes, Edwin and Anna Jarvis!"]

\-----

DISTRICT SEVEN

She is throwing axes at trees when he finds her.

"There's no use in exhausting yourself now. We don't have any control over this."

She makes her frustration heard as she throws another axe. It lodges itself twenty feet above her. "Damn you for being right." She wipes back the sweat-drenched hair from her forehead before turning toward him. "They're trying to wipe us out and we have to _let_ them. One person will come out alive over the bodies of 23 others." He stays quiet, which could be considered a miracle and under any other circumstances would leave him at her mercy. Instead, he lets her finish. "We're going to die."

"They haven't picked us yet."

She glares. "There aren't all that many options."

["Your tributes, District Seven: Timothy Dugan and Peggy Carter!"]

\-----

DISTRICT NINE

He nearly throws his cane at the screen but holds himself back at the last second. It would do him no good for the Peacekeepers to visit his house to replace it, so instead he throws the cane to the ground and collapses into a chair.

His leg twitches and he curses the damn phantom limb. He tries to swallow back the memories that haunt him at night and fails.

["District Nine, your male tribute is Daniel Sousa!"]

\-----

DISTRICT TWELVE

He looks different now, after winning the Hunger Games. Bigger, yes, stronger and faster and too much like a Career. But the worst part is how his eyes have changed, his mother says. They're still as blue as ever, but she says there is pain there, tinged with fear and suspicion.

He says that it's to be expected from a Victor of the Games.

When the announcement comes, he runs laps until he almost passes out. It takes the entire day.

["The District Twelve male tribute: Steve Rogers!"]

\-----

SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES--THE THIRD QUARTER QUELL! MEET YOUR FORMER VICTORS AND CURRENT TRIBUTES!

"Dottie Underwood, District 1, victor of the 63rd games. Won by charming all her fellow tributes before brutally killing 12 of them over three days, 5 of which she disarmed before using unarmed combat to kill them."

"Jack Thompson, District 2, victor of the 73rd games. Won by befriending a pack of 4 tributes before killing them in their sleep."

"Angie Martinelli, District 2, victor of the 74th games. Won by pretending to be weak through training, then obtaining a set of poison darts at the Cornucopia."

"Howard Stark, District 3, victor of the 66th games. Won by creating a feedback loop and electrocuting the remaining tributes."

"Bucky Barnes, District 4, victor of the 68th games. Won by tearing his final opponent's limbs out of their sockets. He was given a metal arm to commemorate his victory."

"Edwin Jarvis, District 6, victor of the 58th games. Won by decapitating the final two tributes with a boomerang blade, though he nearly injured himself."

"Anna Jarvis, nee Frankel, District 6, victor of the 70th games. Won largely by hiding until no victors were left."

"Thomas Dugan, District 7, victor of the 61st games. Won by use of a double-bladed ax."

"Peggy Carter, District 7, victor of the 69th games. Won by lodging a throwing ax into her opponents' chests."

"Daniel Sousa, District 9, victor of the 62nd games. Won by strategic planning and taking down his final opponent in mostly unarmed combat. Lost his leg shortly before that and used his makeshift cane to seal his victory.”

“Steve Rogers, District 12, victor of the 67th games. Volunteered. Won after receiving a very generous gift from sponsors—super serum that changed his appearance by increasing his muscle mass.”

(They never tell the Capitol the real stories.)

\-----

Plucking Victors from the Districts and sizing them back up for the Games is an easier task than taking unaccustomed children to groom. Victors have done this all before, have been stripped and built back up to please the citizens of the Capitol before they won, and every year after when they've been called to the Reaping, or the Capitol to be mentors, if they were lucky. The stylists play up their strengths and tone down their weaknesses. District One is made glamourous, while District Seven is made earthy. (The citizens of the Capitol never see Peggy Carter glaring daggers at her stylists like she might consider coming at them with her axes.)

The parade is tearful on the Capitol's end. They are loathe to see their beloved Victors being sent to their deaths, even when the citizens are cheering about how lovely they all look.

\-----

Training is where the real fun begins.

Everyone has been broadcasted to millions of homes across Panem. Everyone's strengths and weaknesses are known to everyone else, so no one holds back.

Jack nearly beats a training assistant unconscious. Bucky crushes whole tree branches with his metal hand like they were twigs. Anna disguises herself so well that even her husband cannot find her. The pair from District 7 lodge their axes in so many dummies that they're told to practice on ones that they've already nearly decimated. Daniel takes down three training assistants at once.

It's enough to make the games a very, very good one.

However, when the Victors aren't training, they are socialising. Of course, there are pleasantries exchanged, some laced with malice and others more genuine, but many glares are aimed toward the gamemakers, daggers implied.

Alliances are suggested, destroyed, and built.

\-----

The interviews are tearful on the Victors' end. Or at least some of them are. They play to the love shown by their sponsors and the citizens watching in the audience. Dottie plays humble. Angie cries for only having a year to meet them all. Howard blows kisses and no less than two dozen women faint. Steve charms the socks off of everyone.

They will make the Capitol bleed as much as they will in the Games.

\-----

The day that heralds the start of the Games arrives with little fanfare, a faded echo of the city-wide post-interview celebration that lasted until the early hours of the morning. It is almost too quiet, though no one is complaining. Anyone who is awake is too focused or too distracted.

Each Victor is given a lightweight, waterproof jacket. It tells little about the terrain, but they've all been through hell once and are prepared to do it again.

The announcement is made to usher the once-again tributes into the transport tubes. And so it begins.

\-----

The minute before the Games begin is the most disorienting minute of them all. Jack blinks wildly as he turns on his pedestal, the strangely calm scent of spring air hitting his nose. 24 tributes are arranged in a half circle. The Cornucopia is hidden in a hill, making it indistinguishable from the green surrounding it unless you are staring at its mouth--

\--which is half covered with a wall.

He tries to swallow down the panic and instead focuses on his District's training. The tributes nearest him, neither of whose names he recalls, know exactly what he's capable of.

"3, 2, 1."

He runs toward the center of the circle and is the fastest, as was expected. He sees a few tributes running away, but predictably, the careers are moving the quickest.

There's a girl from a outer district running, too. She is fast, but he is faster and smarter so he slows down and lets her pass. She doesn't realise what's happening until it's too late and he has his arm around her throat.

She takes her last breath.

He drops her and keeps running, though in his delay he sees that there are others there. His best shot is still to grab a weapon, so when he rounds the wall to reach for a spear--

\--pain shoots through him. He looks down and sees the tip of a broadsword through his gut just before he falls.

\-----

Angie drops the sword in disdain and mild disgust. It was too easy to kill her Districtmate, but it had to be done. She knows that there are several tributes already dead because she saw the woman from One crack the skull of the girl from Eight against a rock, saw the same woman flip in midair and break the neck of the man from 10 with her legs only seconds later.

She looks behind her before she starts rifling through what's available. Spears (she leaves them in distaste, not wanting to use what her Districtmate favoured), daggers (a few of which she picks up), axes (none of which she can yield), bows and arrows, blades and staffs and--her eyes land on the darts that must be meant for her. She smiles and picks them up when she hears a noise behind her.

This is not how she is going to die, she decides, though the panic still makes her turn around wide-eyed. She only briefly sees the man's face before he is yanked away out of her sight.

She whirls around and grabs a spear to defend herself. There's a sickening crack from behind the wall and then the man from Twelve stands tall. She aims the spear at him.

"Wait!" He holds up his hands. "Your Districtmate killed mine, even though I promised to keep her safe. But you killed him, so I killed whoever that was. Allies?"

Angie tilts her head for a moment before she smiles, dropping the spear with an entirely ungraceful clatter. "Steve, right? I think we can do that."

\-----

Bucky from 3 disappears away from the Cornucopia, and Peggy shudders as she heads toward it. He must be tracking the ones who think they can escape, but she shakes the thought from her head as she locates her friend from Three. "Howard!" He is fighting wildly with the girl from Nine and Peggy sees that he can hold her off until--until she can get to the Cornucopia.

The axes are just waiting there for her, like a present from the Gamemakers themselves. She doesn't smile as she picks them up.

She runs back and throws, lodges one in Nine's back and Howard drops her immediately, backing away as Peggy approaches. "What if that had been me?"

Peggy grins. "Oh, ye of little faith." He looks shaky, but realises that they are suspiciously alone and puts his guard up again. Peggy looks around. "If we can find Steve, we should. You should go see if there's any wire for you to use. I'll watch your six."

It only takes a few minutes before Peggy finds Steve, an alliance made years ago. "Hello, Rogers," she greets, before noticing that he isn't alone. Her eyes narrow in suspicion at the Career before she looks up at Steve. He nods once. "I suppose we'll be watching each other's backs," she says, reaching her hand out for the girl's.

\-----

9 cannons go off.

He crushes his metal hand and drops her.

A tenth shortly follows.

\-----

When the tributes' pictures light up the sky, Peggy looks for familiar faces. The girl from Eight was friendly but her chances of survival were slim. The only Career to have died was Angie's Districtmate.

She is secretly glad to see that Dum Dum has survived. They never formed an official alliance, and if he felt safer without the attachment of others, then she would respect that.

It is hard enough for her to accept that if she expects to live, twenty-three others must die, three of which are sleeping near her. She had volunteered for the first watch shift. She could kill them in their sleep, but she shakes that thought clear out.

She is not a Career.

\-----

The next night, there are two faces in the sky, one belonging to a Career. Steve turns to Angie, frowning. "You killed your Districtmate and joined an alliance of misfits. Why didn't you all stick together?"

Angie shrugs, rather viciously tearing away at the squirrel she's been roasting. "I hated all of them."

No one asks for clarification.

\-----

The hiding place they've claimed as their own is hidden from view, enough so that Anna feels safe and Edwin can turn his careful eye away from enemies for a while. He found a discarded blade that might have been the weapon of a fallen tribute--useless to them but perhaps invaluable to him. She has a simple bow and a quiver half-full of arrows, left at the edge of the clearing.

Neither of them will be making it out of the Games alive. It was an unspoken vow that they agreed upon before their interview.

She is smiling at the sight of a flock of brightly coloured birds, her attempt at picking berries forgotten. He wants to remember her laugh, the way her eyes light up like this forever. He loosens his grip on the sword, laughing with her.

When she stops laughing, he yells. The knife sticking through her throat makes him see red, the red of her blood and his anger as he swings the blade at the cat-like grin of the woman from Four.

Two cannons sound.

\-----

A two-headed axe is no match for his metal arm.

Another cannon sounds.

\-----

The sight of Dum Dum's crooked smile in the sky wrenches at Peggy's heart, but secretly she is keeping count. There are 8 left, which would mean interviews of family members, though most tributes have none. Not after what the Capitol did to them.

She stares hollowly at the sky, long after the pictures fade and the music stops. Someone stirs and sits beside her.

Steve's shoulder becomes her pillow.

\-----

Dottie smiles when she finds the man from Nine, the one with a prosthetic leg given to him by the Capitol. He hardly uses it as a handicap if he's make it this far, she thinks, so she goes easy on him when she attacks him.

She needs someone to be her test subject, after all.

The flask of blood spills from her collar and she plays dead. She is convincing, surely, or he wouldn't be checking again.

Her hand tightens around the small bottle gifted by a Sponsor before she sprays it into his face. He backs away, coughing, stumbling and unbalanced and Dottie runs.

\-----

Edwin wanders aimlessly. It's been two days since Anna's death and he thinks he might be losing his mind. He starts seeing her everywhere he turns. Sometimes she is smiling, sometimes the knife is still sticking out of her throat.

He wants to beg for death. He knows the man from Three would do it as a favour, so Edwin decides to seek out Howard Stark.

The world has different plans for him, though, so when the man from Nine springs from the bushes, Edwin welcomes death.

\-----

The cannon sounds. Peggy looks up in alarm. There are seven left, then, which means that the Gamekeepers will be forcing them closer and closer until a victor emerges.

The rustling of leaves makes her freeze, her hand almost to her mouth in a gesture of panic for the rest of the group. Steve takes up a shield and Angie readies her darts. Howard stops muttering to himself, picking up a metal staff, and Peggy hopes that his stupid project works if anything happens.

Silence, then--

\--a man charges at them, blood dripping from his hands and there is some smeared around his mouth. She thinks she might be sick, but there is a rage in his eyes that doesn't look right. He focuses too quickly on Angie, who appears the least well-armed, her darts requiring a longer range.

There's a moment where they stand in shock at how fast he is moving on a Capitol leg, but Peggy is certain that something is controlling him. His hand locks around Angie's throat and Peggy throws her ax.

A cannon sounds before he falls to the ground. Angie's feet drop unceremoniously to the ground and her knees buckle as she tries to catch her breath and Steve lends her his arm. Peggy goes to retrieve her ax before the body is taken.

There is almost no time before someone drops from the trees overhead.

How did they miss him?

Sunlight glints off of the Capitol arm given to the man from Four and it feels like the Gamekeepers must be mocking them. Steve brushes them all away and steps forward, his shield held at the ready. Bucky picks up one of Angie's forgotten daggers.

It is vicious. Peggy shouts for Steve to let her help and he refuses, taking a stab to the arm for her distraction. She falls silent and watches helplessly, though Howard scrambles toward where his trap is set. The heavy, sharp sounds of metal on metal ring through the clearing. "ROGERS, OVER HERE."

Steve nearly catches another stab, this time in his side, when he realises what Howard means. He swings hard and catches Bucky in the stomach, throwing him. Bucky reaches out his arm to stop himself--

\--and lands directly into Howard's electrical trap. The sound of an electric current running through the metal arm sounds like sizzling and Angie turns away in disgust. Peggy can't seem to look away.

When the current stops, the boom sounds from the distance.

A groan comes from somewhere to the side of the trap. Steve hardly notices his own injury, starting to heal already as a side effect of the serum. Instead, he sees that the dagger Bucky had been holding is now lodged in Howard's side. Under any other conditions, a wound like this wouldn't be fatal.

But this is the Hunger Games, and death is encouraged.

Peggy forces him to lie down and Angie cleans what she can of the area around the wound. No one touches the dagger because the blood loss would cause him to go into shock and die right then. There is only so much they can do.

It takes until nightfall for Howard to beg for mercy.

"I can't listen to him anymore, Peg." Angie looks thoroughly anguished. Peggy watches her for a moment before turning to Steve, who nods. They understand each other.

Peggy gets up from around their fire, no longer a danger, not when there are five left, soon to be four. She locates a bush of poisonous berries and picks two, taking them to where Howard is lying.

"Eat these, Howard, and the pain will go away."

When the cannon sounds, Peggy closes her eyes and wills herself not to cry.

\-----

There is no way to bury a body here in the Arena. The dead are taken away to be buried in their home Districts, if there's enough of them to be buried. What the Capitol never planned for was a game where there are no family members left to bury the dead. The only family the tributes had were each other.

Steve says they should leave the trap as a memorial, and Angie leaves a wreath of flowers there after Peggy grounds the wires. She can't wash the blood from her hands and has never been able to, but now it eats away at her like a disease. They leave the clearing, where the memory of their friend and the scent of death linger too freshly and instead make their way toward the Cornucopia, where they will most likely meet the woman from One.

Peggy doesn't want to think about how two of them need to die along with the woman from One for a Victor to emerge. The Capitol wants a Victor, but she doesn't see a way out of this. Not for her, not for anyone else here.

"Fancy seeing all of you here." Her voice is heard before she is seen. Her name is Dottie, Peggy remembers, and she steps forward. Steve is still recovering from the fight and Angie is still wheezing, so if they have to fight each other, it should be a fair fight. She swings her axes in her hands, itching to let this all end.

Dottie tilts her head, an innocent smile playing on her face as she drops her sword. Peggy blinks once, twice, three times, trying to assess the situation. So be it. She drops her axes, too.

The dagger in her back pocket remains where it is.

Dottie makes the first move, rushing at Peggy and kicking her legs out. Peggy falls but catches herself and rolls just before Dottie can crush her skull. Peggy gets to her feet, landing a punch to Dottie's jaw.

There is blood on her knuckles and a ringing in her head and she just wants it to end, but her need to survive is just too strong. Her mentors' words ring in her head, even when Dottie kicks her so hard across the back that she doesn't recover quickly enough.

Peggy is hunched over and Dottie steps back, that sickening grin still on her face. A moment's respite, and then Dottie is aiming punches and elbows and kicks at an alarming speed. Peggy wheels around, almost losing her balance as she reaches for the dagger.

It lodges itself between Dottie's ribs, and she coughs, blood spraying over the grass. It doesn't stop her, though, as she elbows Peggy in the stomach.

Peggy has the good sense to take the dagger with her. She stabs blindly at close range.

It cuts her leg and Peggy knows that it's over. Dottie will bleed until she dies from blood loss. It's a small victory and she almost has time to breathe.

Then Dottie reaches into her pocket and pulls out a canister and throws it to the ground with what little strength she has left.

All four of them start to cough.

\-----

The Capitol has no Victors this year, only remnants of bodies.

The riots start that night.

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry. And if you want me to elaborate on weapons or unmentioned tributes, I have details for those, too, _or_ you can ask me to elaborate on what happened in each Victor's Games because, you know, I do extensive detailing for this sort of thing.


End file.
